A blog about about painting, design and other aspects of aesthetics along with a dash of non-art topics. The point-of-view is that modernism in art is an idea that has, after a century or more, been thoroughly tested and found wanting. Not to say that it should be abolished -- just put in its proper, diminished place.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Dictators, Portrayed

If you're a dictator, l'état c'est moi is the real deal. So if the nation requires glorification, you must humbly submit to at least a small dose of same.

In the age of photography, portrait painting seems to have taken a back seat to the lens and darkroom where dictators are concerned. Nevertheless, paintings were produced for many of the leading dictators of the era 1920-50.

My guess is that the Soviet Union's Stalin was depicted in paint the most. These paintings weren't not necessarily portraits; a good many showed him with workers, children, et cetera gathered around him or in other genre settings.

Stalin and China's Mao Tse-Tung had their faces on huge banners, but that's something different from a formal portrait; our Mao example is in fact a poster. Adolf Hitler, despite of or perhaps because of his background as a painter (of architecture, mostly) tended to favor photographers.

About Me

Undergraduate art major. Ph.D. in Sociology, Demography from a fancy Ivy university. Software system and user interface designer and programmer. Writing about art and design on the Internet since 2005.
Email: dbpittenger (at) earthlink.net